Yearly Archives: 2012

Free Software v. “Open Source” community?

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Free Software v. “Open Source” community?

My reply to Bjarni:

Wait, who cares?

Why does this matter?

Well, although I’m sure most people don’t care, us geeks can get really emotional about the difference between Free Software and Open Source. Violent, even.

Every geek has an opinion. But when asked to explain, we falter and wave our hands, “admitting” that there’s really no difference, or spouting vague nonsense about pragmatism vs. idealism or even communism vs. capitalism.

I’ve always found this deeply unsatisfying. Because although I respect Open Source, I love Free Software.
Definitions!

So what is the difference? I propose the following definitions:

The Free Software Community writes and shares software with an explicit intent to safeguard the rights and freedoms of its users by eliminating antifeatures and natural monopolies.

The Open Source Community writes and shares software with an explicit intent to advance the state of the art of computing through open collaboration and publication.

Both are noble goals, members of both camps can stand proud. But when stated this way, they are also obviously different.

Free Software v. “Open Source” community?

FOSDEM 2012, panel on Application stores

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For the 3rd year in a row, I’m going to FOSDEM, the most awaited European Free Software event that takes place every year at the Université Libre of Brussels (how appropriate: the free university in the land of (not free) beer!)

This year though, I will not only attend and chat at the booth, I will also discuss the topic of application stores in the Legal DevRoom, Saturday afternoon, with Giovanni Battista Gallus, Bradley M. Kuhn, and Richard Fontana. Here’s the abstract:

So-called “app stores” are becoming a popular means of distributing software, particularly for mobile devices. However, the rise of app stores has been accompanied by tensions with free software/open source legal norms. Companies controlling official app distribution channels for their platforms typically place restrictive terms on both users and developers in ways that may be difficult or impossible to harmonize with requirements and expectations around FLOSS licensing. Moreover, there is a perception that noncompliance with FLOSS licenses is prevalent in app store distribution. This panel will explore some of the problems arising out of the intersection between app stores and FLOSS, under EU as well as US law, and will discuss possible solutions.

So if you’re interested, come and join us at 17.30 in room AW1.125!

Quelques notes sur la seconde licence publique Mozilla (MPL 2.0)

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(A short post in French on the Mozilla Public License 2.0. If you want to know about it, you can read in English Luis Villa, who led the update process. Richard Fontana wrote an article (RedHat); and the FSF has lauded the compatibility with GNU licenses.)

Cette année, une petite nouvelle est arrivée dans le monde des licences de logiciel libre : la seconde version de la licence publique Mozilla (MPL 2.0). Elle n’est pas totalement nouvelle, car elle garde l’esprit général de la première version puisqu’il s’agit d’une licence de faible copyleft. C’est-à-dire que cette licence permet dans une certaine mesure — assez large — de combiner du code régi par la MPL avec du code sous une autre licence (y compris propriétaire). Pour autant, des modifications apportées aux fichiers du code MPL doivent être régies par les mêmes obligations : mise à disposition du code source, notifications des droits des utilisateurs (droits d’utiliser, de partager, d’étudier le fonctionnement et de publier des modifications — la définition d’un logiciel libre).

Ainsi, la MPL est un bon compromis, entre d’un côté les licences “académiques” (BSD, MIT) et de l’autre, les licences copyleft¹ fortes comme la licence publique générale GNU. Mais comme tout compromis, la MPL souffre des inconvénients incombant à chacun des deux modèles de licence.

Il y a cependant des qualités indéniables à la MPL 2.0, que j’ai voulues résumer ici […]

Lire Les qualités de la MPL 2.0.